our senior international correspondent ben wedeman's in cairo to sample. >> reporter: i'm ben wedeman's in cairo, egypt. if you're looking for something that's cheap, filling, nutritious and quintessentially egyptian, or so they say, abu tare is the place to go. there's no reason here to ask for a menu, because there's only one item they serve here, and that is really, the working man's lunch here in egypt. kushari. it's a very simple dish with rice, pasta, lentils, tomato sauce, a sort of garlic and vinegar sauce, and as you can see, they do a very brisk business here. now, i said before that kushari isn't quintessentially an egyptian food, i discovered it's not. it actually coming from an indian dish that's composed of rice, lentils, fried onions and chopped vegetables. apparently introduced to egypt by the british army. so what we have here is the basic ingredients of the kushari, and what you do is add a bit of lemon to it. and some extra chickpeas, and what i like the most is the extra fried onions, which really do add to this dish. plus, the tomato sauce. and if you so desire, the